Category
🤖
TechTranscript
00:00Hey, how's it going? Dave2D here. So Alienware laptops have been around for a while. They're
00:08normally a little bit bigger, a little bit thicker, normally a little bit heavier than
00:10other gaming laptops out there, but recently they announced the M15. This is their first
00:15thin and light gaming laptop, which kind of goes in the opposite direction of everything
00:18I know about Alienware, but they've also done something really impressive this year that
00:22I didn't think they'd be able to do. They have good thermals in this thin and light
00:25gaming laptop. So here it is. This is Alienware's new 15-inch thin and light gaming laptop,
00:30and I put a picture of this up on Twitter, and a lot of you guys were asking, does this
00:33have the same kind of build quality and durability as their regular Alienware laptops? Because
00:38that's what Alienware has been known for over these years. Really good build quality, really
00:42tanky laptops. And is this as well-built? Is this still a tank? Structurally, I'm going
00:47to say yes. It's not super thin if you compare it to stuff like the GS65 or an Aero 15 or
00:52Razer Blade. Those are thinner. This isn't crazy thin, but it's significantly thinner
00:56than their previous generation. Now if you look at the build quality across the chassis,
01:00this thing feels completely different from those other devices. There's no flex on the
01:04chassis. The hinge is really well-built. The top panel has the same kind of finish as the
01:08previous generation with the light-up Alienware head logo. The inside has this soft-touch
01:12material, but it feels a little bit different this year than it did in the previous generation.
01:16This actually feels like it'll last longer. It reminds me of the stuff that you see on
01:19the higher-end Lenovo laptops. It feels like it won't degrade over time. The bottom panel
01:24is also metal, and I mean like a solid metal. This is like, it's legit. This is the type
01:29of stuff that you see in really well-built laptops. It's not like thin aluminum that
01:32can flex easily. It's built like an Alienware, feels like an Alienware. It's a tank. The
01:37technical specs are solid. It's a 2018 gaming laptop. It has great components. They basically
01:42took their Alienware 15 and fit it into this thinner and lighter package. It's running
01:46two NVMe drives on this unit, fast ones. Good port selection, including their graphics
01:51amp port for their external GPU, but it can also use Thunderbolt 3 if you want. There's
01:55a power connection and video outputs in the back, which I kind of like, and then your
01:59USB, Ethernet, and audio jacks are on the side. There's still no SD card slot though
02:03if you're looking for one. Okay, keyboard is quite different this year. The previous
02:08generation of Alienware laptops had a very plush keyboard. The M15 has a chiclet keyboard.
02:13I've used these so much that I'm very comfortable on them for typing and gaming. There's a number
02:17pad on the side for people who want them. The keystrokes on this keyboard isn't as deep
02:22as the previous generation. The travel is a little bit shorter, but it is a very comfortable
02:25keyboard. I think most people can get used to this quite easily. The trackpad is also
02:29a little bit different this year. The previous generation had a light-up surface. Those are
02:33gone. This is more of a traditional kind of generic-looking trackpad. It is a nice one.
02:37It's a glass surface, kind of good tracking precision drivers, which is great, but the
02:41keyboard and the trackpad feel a little more generic to me. Not that they're bad, they're
02:45actually quite good, it's just visually they don't look as iconic as the previous Alienware
02:50input devices. The lighting on this keyboard is also in zones, still not individually lit.
02:55Alright, the metal panel on the bottom comes off easily and inside you have access to two
02:59RAM slots, two NVMe drives, the Wi-Fi card. This is a Killer 1550. It's Intel-based, but
03:05you can replace it if you want, and you can also see the 90-watt-hour battery. So this
03:08battery is the extended battery. There's a smaller 60-watt-hour battery. This unit's
03:13getting around 6 hours of battery life with the screen at 250 nits. Now keep in mind this
03:17is with the 4K panel. The lower-res screens will probably do better. The speakers are
03:21located on the side and the bottom. Very clean audio, loud volume, and they have good stereo
03:25separation. The screen on the M15 has smaller bezels this time around. So Alienware laptops
03:30usually have really thick bezels. It's improved. The side bezels are definitely thinner. Top
03:35and bottom bezels are still a bit thick, but the material that they use around the
03:38bezel on this thing is this glossy plastic, and I really don't like seeing this material
03:43on laptops. It's just a material that can scratch really easily and over time this material
03:47can look really worn. I just wish they'd gone with the standard matte plastic for the bezel.
03:51The webcam is up top and the image looks pretty clean. So this panel is a 4K panel. It's color-accurate
03:57and bright. There is a 144Hz panel available if you want that. The 4K panel is great for
04:01creative work, but if you're gaming, I'd go for that higher refresh. So gaming performance
04:05on this device is excellent. There's nothing new. 6-core i7, GTX 1070 Max-Q. Great device
04:11for playing basically any title at 1080p. If you do get this configuration though, I
04:15highly recommend picking up that 144Hz panel. High refresh screens really showcase this
04:20generation of hardware better, and it just makes the whole gaming experience that much
04:23more enjoyable. Okay, let's talk about thermals. When they first announced the M15, I kind
04:28of expected this laptop to have mediocre thermal performance. And it's not because
04:31I dislike the brand or anything. As much praise as I've been giving Alienware over the years
04:35for like great build quality and durability, they have struggled with thermal issues in
04:40the past. A lot of their laptops just run a little bit hotter than I'd like them to.
04:44This device somehow has great thermals. It benchmarks well. There's no throttling. Even
04:48on stress tests, this thing runs really well. Fan noise is not even that loud. On idle,
04:53it's actually silent. So they've obviously spent a good amount of time engineering a
04:56much improved thermal solution for this particular device. But the question that pops into my
05:00head is, how are they doing this on this? Like if they can make a laptop this thin,
05:05this light, cooled this effectively, why aren't they doing this on their other laptops as
05:10well? Like the regular 15-inch, and the regular 17-inch, and the regular 13-inch, they should
05:15have way better thermals considering how much more room they have in those devices than
05:20this. So it's great that Alienware did this, and I love that they're actually taking care
05:24of their thermals. That's something that's bothered a lot of people about their device
05:27over the years, and they finally fixed it, but they did it on a thin and light device.
05:31So if they take this technology and they bring it to their other devices, that'll be awesome.
05:36But the M15 by itself really impressed me. I think some of it has to do with the ventilation
05:40up top. Like this is the first time we've seen ventilation coming up through the top
05:43of the keyboard on an Alienware, and it seems to help. It also looks pretty cool up there.
05:47So my overall take on this laptop, I like it. I feel like they did a really good job
05:51on the refresh. It's got most of the DNA that we'd expect from Alienware devices. It
05:56doesn't have the light-up side stuff on the RGB things, and we don't have the light-up
06:00trackpad, but the overall device has all the good stuff, all the important good stuff from
06:05Alienware devices. It's built really well, good performance, and it looks a lot better
06:09this year. Okay, hope you guys enjoyed this video. Thumbs if you liked it, subs if you
06:12loved it. See you guys next time.